XVI.

Darkness. One spotlight illuminates a small plot of space. Ophunji steps into the light.

“Oh. Imagine, yes?: your mind, interfacing with my machines; and then!, a concrete manifestation of your subconscious musical desires. Feel it, and hear it. Dream come true, no? You want this. Yes?”

Scambot moans. He’s not used to talking when he’s unconscious.”Can’t. Process. All this. Yet.”
“Humph.”
“Need. More. In...for...ma...”
“Humph. Did you not read your printout?”
“Largely. Um. Meaningless. Too...technical. Tell: Me: When. When? Did...you...”

“Think hard, drip. Your last childhood memory. Dredge it up. Come on.”

Another spotlight illuminates another chunk of darkness: 8-year old Ian running around the recreation room of a vacation resort in upper Long Island. Underneath the ping pong table, chasing a friend, eating an apple, spinning in circles...

“Dredge it!!”

Ian stops short at an old-fashioned soda machine with a tall, narrow glass door on the right side, behind which a vertical row of bottles are presented, caps forward. Mmm! They’ve got Bubble Up!

Ian inserts his dime, opens the door and pulls out the slim, dewy green bottle. A beat, and then he feels something being pulled out of him, and into the hole formerly occupied by the bottle. He himself follows, behind
the door, into the hole, chasing, desperate to reclaim what’s been taken from him.

He floats through a series of surreal abstractions inside the soda machine. Shapes, swirling pixilated distortions in a million colors.

Ophunji’s head bobs into view.

“I’m your friend. This place is cool!! I like Bubble Up too! Let’s play! Let’s be friends!” The head bobs from side to side, bounces off walls as Ophunji attempts to engage Ian, who is terrified.

The head of Chee appears. It bumps Ophunji’s out of the way, and speaks to Ian.

Chee: Warnings are useless. You’ll do what you need to do. And what needs to happen, will. Anyway, as I was saying: Don’t freeze those eggs! Didn’t your mother tell you not to do that?

Ian: Freezing? Eggs?

Chee: Freezing eggs changes their molecular structure, and if you thaw them later, they become fertile, and the thing that comes out of the egg - what’s the word for that again?

Ian: The spawn?

Chee: The spawn of the egg is of a different species than that which the egg, ah, was originally. You have no idea what you might get, and it could be dangerous or inconvenient.

Ian: I see. Chee. Thank you.

Chee: You’re welcome. Just, be careful.

Seeing Chee again frees Ian. He bobs gently back through the same incomprehensible tableaux as before, but now feeling secure in this interesting new place. Slowly he bounces. A groove is established by the warp and weave of his bounce.

Quiet voices soothe him:

Ahhhh ahhh ahhh
Ahhh ahhhhh ahhhh’ahh
Ahhh’hh ahh’hhh ahh

At the end of a long corridor, he can see three men playing basses: one acoustic stand-up, one standard electric, one fretless. Jimmy Garrison, Hugh Hopper and Jaco Pastorius are playing a chorale in three-part harmony. They smile and bear down. The music they’re playing is trying to form words in Scambot’s imagination, and the effort of deciphering the words makes his head turn completely around four times, before he finally -

CLANG! Ophunji slaps Scambot upside the metal helmet one time, really hard. "Good! You ready?"